“She turns ninety-three, the first time she forgets to say it back:
‘Happy Birthday.'”
She turns ninety-three
The first time
She forgets
To wish me a “Happy Birthday.”
Fifty-four years
String our shared day together.
Granny,
Granddaughter,
Birthday buddies.
Thirty-nine years ago
They called to tell her I was born on
Her day.
“It’s not my day yet,” she replies,
Confused.
“It is, when your granddaughter is born
In Australia,”
They explain.
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I just had my first piece published in Ekstasis Magazine!
Check it out: https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/blog/2021/9/2/a-new-refrain-my-weapon
Dear Shepherd of my conflicted soul,
Guide me this day as I contemplate the truths You have revealed in
Your Word and in
Your World.
Illuminate to me the truths you would have me dwell upon,
Like a meal laid before me meant not simply to be consumed,
But to be tasted and savored,
The flavors remembered and revisited throughout the day.
Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, and lovely,
Cause my mind to rest in these things.
At the same time, O Shield and Defender of my soul,
Protect my mind from reading Your Word through a lens of
Falsehood, shabbiness, evil, impurity, and ugliness.
When I come upon a passage or idea that confuses or confounds my miniscule mind,
Keep me from distortion and lies.
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I wake in the early hours, a weight pressing me down. I have spent days, weeks wrestling through the questions of the mysteries and goodness of God, and I am weary. So weary.
Most recently, but not unrelated, I had found myself stuck in the theology of compatibalism: that God is both completely sovereign and man has free will.
None of these make sense to me in my own brain, and I have been forced to conclude that He is God and I am not. All of these things are true, and God is still good.
Okay, God, I say. I’m ready to move on from this stupor and stuckness. This aching and groaning. This wondering and fighting. This wilderness and exile. I’m ready to walk in freedom and gladness and light. Ready, set, go!
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I needed to buy steaks for dinner, bananas, and gift bags, so I drove down Washington Street on Friday morning. I planned to go to Meijer where I would find all of those things and enjoy a relatively calming experience. But Wal-Mart appeared first, and I almost kept going, but something made me turn in instead.
I don’t really like Wal-Mart. The wheels on the carts always get stuck, it feels crammed, and something about it is just depressing. But I pulled in and un-fastened my three-year-old from her car seat. I had little more than a half hour to zip through the aisles with my list. Bananas. Check. Steak. Check. Wine. Check. Birthday gift for my 6-year-old’s friend. Check. A plastic watering can, and then off to find a gift bag for my husband’s 40th birthday gift.
As soon as my cart entered the gift aisle, I got that feeling.
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Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, the clouds that you much dread, are big with mercy and will break in blessings on your head
– William Cowper
Almost 20 years ago, I climbed a sooty hill in Lima, Peru. The sky was overcast and my friends and I wanted to stretch our legs, near the end of a long summer of missions work among the poor. We learned later that we had been hiking through a field of abandoned landmines left by rebels. But we were college students and the climb ahead was all we had in our heads.
These days, the memory is as foggy as that polluted Lima morning, but I remember the dirt clinging to my boots and calves as we ascended the hill. I also recall that after a while, the blanket-like cloud cover thinned and I began to see a sliver of blue.
And then, in an instant, we walked right through.
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I turn over in bed, the fingers of darkness pressing me down, only half rousing from a dark and strange dream …
In my dream, someone had died, someone who was supposed to marry another. It was tragic. And then suddenly, somehow the idea gets turned on me, and I am wandering through a weird gift shop wondering if I am still married, and if I’m not, what am I supposed to do with this precious ring on my hand?
Dreams. The bizarre telling out of all our fears and pains and hopes and desires. It is a kindness to wake up.
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Build a tunnel with us, Mommy,
Please come and join our play.
The world is while and we wide-eyed
This Keats-like snowy day
Come along on our adventure
We think we’ve found some tracks
A bear, a moose, a long-necked snoop,
Or maybe just a cat.
(Composed December 2020)
Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden …
Stumbling forward with twice-tied grocery bags,
She collapses
In the grass
Near the sidewalk.
I U-turn and yell out the window,
“Ma’am!”
“Ma’am!”
“MA’AM!”
I’ve grown used to playing the fool.
Continue reading(Composed in December 2020)
What to do with a day
In which you meet a
Bent-over woman in a
Maroon coat
Huddling by a grocery cart filled with her entire
Life?
A day
In which there was almost
No room in the women’s shelter,
Even for an old, bent-over woman with a grocery cart.
Because of
No staff,
Too many needs
Covid.